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Intrada #101 includes Leigh Harline's "The True Story of Jesse James" and Lionel Newman's "The Last Wagon".
In Newman's score, it was nice to hear one musical cue that was later used in Irwin Allen's tv show (one of my 'musical grail') "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" . And seeing the name of musicians, including at "accordion": Dominic Frontiere!
Two great western scores by the way (Newman's being my favorite). I look forward for more Newman's scores!
I also can sense Alexander Courage found some influence there (first notes of the Harline score).
And David Rose ("Little House on the Prairie") in Newman's score.
I have the soundtrack CD of The Last Wagon / The True Story of Jesse James (UK title: The James Brothers) and it only includes about half the score from The Last Wagon, with a lot of great cues missing. The score is so good and so melodic that it really deserves a CD all to itself. Anyone know of any plans for such a CD?
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That's a pity if the CD contains all that survives from it, especially as that which is on the CD is of excellent quality. If true, then the whole score can only be heard on the married print soundtrack of the film, replete with dialogue and sound effects.
If it's true that Alfred Newman; Cyril Mockridge and Hugo Friedhofer did work on the film (uncredited, of course), it would be interesting to find out not only which parts of the score they had a hand in, but who actually wrote the stirring main title theme, credited to Lionel Newman, as different arrangements of it can be heard throughout the picture, as it is adapted to different scenes. One particular arrangement of it (not included on the CD) is the part where Todd (Richard Widmark) takes Billy (Tommy Rettig) into the woods to show him how to hunt wild game, with the main title theme moving into a melodic gallop to reflect the happiness they feel in each other's company.
Although a 45 rpm single of the main theme was released in 1956, played by Leroy Holmes and his Orchestra, somehow, Holmes just couldn't reproduce the specific sound of the music on the film soundtrack. Maybe he was using the wrong instruments, or he just couldn't duplicate the arrangement. Either way, Lionel Newman's version definitely had the edge.
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If it's true that Alfred Newman; Cyril Mockridge and Hugo Friedhofer did work on the film (uncredited, of course), it would be interesting to find out not only which parts of the score they had a hand in, but who actually wrote the stirring main title theme, credited to Lionel Newman, as different arrangements of it can be heard throughout the picture, as it is adapted to different scenes.
Nick Redman, who co-produced the CD and restored/mastered the tracks of the score, had this to say about who wrote what of THE LAST WAGON when the Intrada CD was released in 2009:
"Yes, of course we had access to the cue sheets, and I can confirm that Hugo Friedhofer is credited nowhere on them. Alfred Newman and Cyril Mockridge are each credited with having composed 30 seconds or so of the score each, which we felt was not enough to enumerate them as composers of the score. It is not unusual for there to be re-recorded sections of previous 20th Century Fox scores included in fragmentized versions of new cues---in fact we are currently working on a project which is credited on the film to a particular composer, but it turns out he didn't write a single cue in the score!"
http://www.intrada.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2620&hilit=LAST+WAGON&start=15
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Very interesting, Stefan, and thanks for the link to the earlier thread.
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I've just been playing the DVD of the 1940 Gary Cooper picture "The Westerner", with music by Dimitri Tiomkin and made sixteen years before "The Last Wagon" and was surprised to find that the love theme from the film, played whenever Cooper and Doris Davenport are alone together, was used in the score of "The Last Wagon" as the theme for Tommy Rettig's character. So they used some of Tiomkin's music in it as well. I wonder if they asked his permission.
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I've just been playing the DVD of the 1940 Gary Cooper picture "The Westerner", with music by Dimitri Tiomkin and made sixteen years before "The Last Wagon" and was surprised to find that the love theme from the film, played whenever Cooper and Doris Davenport are alone together, was used in the score of "The Last Wagon" as the theme for Tommy Rettig's character. So they used some of Tiomkin's music in it as well. I wonder if they asked his permission.
The IMDB lists Alfred Newman also as a composer also but received no credit. So perhaps Newman wrote this theme in 1940 for The Westerner?
You could be right, PFK.
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